Whooping Cough / Pertussis Cases on The Rise in USA

Here is a short list of recent whooping cough related news reports:

• The Times Herald Whooping Cough News Report on 11/01/2005: The Cattaraugus County Health Department said today the number of confirmed whooping cough, or pertussis, cases in the county had jumped to 42 — most of which are Portville students.

• WCCO TV CBS News Whooping Cough News Report on 10/30/2005: Cases of whooping cough have increased almost seven-fold in Minnesota in recent years. Two years ago, Minnesota had 207 cases of whooping cough. Last year it was up to almost 1,400.

• KU TV News Report on 11/2/2005: LOGAN Reported cases of whooping cough have increased sharply in Utah this year. Last year there were 155 cases of whooping cough, also called pertussis, in Utah, while more than 450 cases were reported in the first 10 months this year. Leona Goodsell, assistant nursing director at the Bear River Health Department, said Cache Valley used to have two or three cases a year, but has had 26 this year.

• Pima County, Tuscon, AZ, KOLD TV Whooping Cough News Report on 11/8/2005: Earlier this year AZ state health officials declared a outbreak of whooping cough all over Arizona, five-hundred cases were reported. State officials believe the outbreak has passed. But, here in Pima County Health officials say the pertussis outbreak is far from over. Pertussis is making a dangerous comeback in southern Arizona. Patti Woodcock with the Pima County Health Department said, "Pima County numbers are coming back up again and so we're not ready to say everything is under control as far as pertussis goes." This summer Red Rock Elementary school closed for several days to fight an outbreak there and this year health officials confirmed at least 500 cases statewide. Pima County Health officials are currently looking at 20 cases here in Tucson that are highly contagious.